March 2, 2006
Katrina Redux
The Return of Katrina, first as tragedy, now as farce. Videos from before the disaster of various meetings with President Bush about Katrina are being touted as showing that Bush was complacent and under prepared. But when you get to the details - you have things like Bush didn't ask any questions in a particular meeting or this sleight of hand:
"I don't think anyone can tell you with confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very great concern," Mayfield says in one.In a September 1 television interview, Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," a statement Chertoff agreed with three days later.
Maybe I'm just a yokel from the midwest, but there is a difference between topping a levee and breaching a levee, although topping is a quick way and effective way to breach an earthen levee. Topping means that a (relatively) small amount of water will make it's way past the levee - breaching means whatever is behind the levee is now part of what's in front of the levee - i.e the levee isn't holding back anything.
I'm not sure what President Bush was supposed to do a few days in advance of levees being overtopped - sent that non-existant armor that also wasn't sent to Iraq? The time to sound such a warning and for it to have an effect is in the years before such an event, not days.
I'll start with the highest level argument - the "fault" of Katrina lies squarely with the citizens of New Orleans, past and present, who built a city that could be devasted by a hurricane, and then didn't take adequate steps to protect themselves. Yes, I have a lot of symphathy for the victims, but ultimately it was local failures over a long period of time that brought about this disaster. Am I blaming the victim here -- to the extent the victims were the perpetrators I am. It's not like this was a hidden hazard.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee, said the tape "demonstrates for all to see what our committee discovered during its investigation of the preparations for and response to Hurricane Katrina.""Government at all levels was forewarned of the catastrophic nature of the approaching storm and did painfully little to be ready to evacuate, search, rescue and relieve," said the Connecticut lawmaker, who had accused the White House of stonewalling the committee.
Sen. Lieberman is correct, we just disagree on the time frame involved. The problem has more to do with human nature than anything else. The best time to fix a leaky roof is when it's sunny, not when it's raining, but we only think about the leaky roof when its raining. Preventative maintaince is always far easier and cheaper than heroic measures, but it gets little support and less acclaim. New Orleans was a special case, or in the words of Michael Brown, a disaster within a disaster, because people decided to put themselves in harms way and do little to prevent disaster thinking that while a disaster was statistically inevitable, it still wouldn't happen to them and if it did, they would be taken care of. [What will you write when the New Madrid Fault levels St. Louis? I'll change the they's to we's -- but it won't happen].
By that time, 11 inches of rain had fallen in New Orleans, the massive storm surge had damaged the flood protection system and about 15,000 people were in the Superdome. That figure eventually doubled, leading to days of intolerable conditions before residents could be bused elsewhere.OK, the conditions weren't intolerable since the people did in fact tolerate them, although I certainly wouldn't want to go through it. There were national guard troops at the Superdome throughout the ordeal maintaining order. The conditions weren't any worse -- just the reporting about them -- than when Ivan exposed how bad things could get at the Superdome during a hurricane. And Ray "Chocolate" Nagin and the rest of New Orleans didn't make any improvements to what was demonstrated to be unacceptable.
Why didn't people get out? The Post-Dispatch had stories in the first few days about how local St. Louisans got out after the hurricane. According to the paper, the first people to show up at the convention center were a group of St. Louis tourists who were directed there by the hotel they were staying at, and who left and came home after being warned to leave by residents. I think people thought aid wouldn't simply come to them because of their great need. Let that be a lesson to all of us - you are on your own in a giant disaster, and the first help will be from your neighbors, not your government.
I have yet to see the press own up to their own mistakes, or pursue with such fervor the timeline of their own flawed reporting. The hysterical and wrong coverage of the press caused assets to be diverted to supressing criminal behavior that was virtually non-existant. Gen. Honore uttered the memorable "Stuck on Stupid" line because the press didn't want to do it's job of informing people, but wanted to second guess and badger. What a President says after the fact is trivial - what the media reports at the time is vital not just because it shapes our perceptions, but because it effects the response. The media failed during Katrina, and made things worse. I'd take a lot more notice of their reporting if news people ever got fired for their mistakes, and not just making things up out of whole cloth.
And as far as the response to the disaster, the real tragedy was the decision (and it's still not clear exactly who decided) not to provide relief in New Orleans, but to use it as a carrot to entice people to leave. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army were ready to go in, but they were prevented. That is truly what caused the suffering that we saw on TV.
Gateway Pundit writes the headline the AP should have written for this story.
Powerline focuses on the factual errors of the reporting.
Wizbang notes the ability of the media to turn on a dime - from Bush was out of touch because he was on vacation, to Bush was out of touch even though he was being thoroughly briefed.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at March 2, 2006 12:40 PM | Current EventsIs it just me, or does it appear to anyone else that ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown is consistently and relentlessly blaming everyone but himself for the Katrina disaster? At first he blamed the Federal government, and now he's blaming his ex-boss Michael Chertoff (head of Homeland Security). Sheesh!
I can see that during an analysis of what went wrong we need to know in detail what happened so we can fix it the next time. During the analysis you need to know who failed, when, and how. But Brown's public statements seem designed to deflect the blame upward, downward, or anywhere but on himself.
There is this idea of accountability: that the leader gets credit or blame for whatever happens on his or her watch. I'm not in favor of a leader symbolically accepting blame, and then moving on to business as usual with no consequences. But in watching Michael Brown I'm starting to think that the Japanese idea of accepting responsibility and resigning has some merit (no, Brown doesn't have to commit hari-kari). Some remorse would look nice.
This is probably a moot point, since Michael Brown will never again be in charge of anything important. But - people like Rudy Giuliani rose to the challenge of 9/11, while other people like Brown fell miserably beneath it.
To be fair to Mr. Brown, I think there was a huge failure in the leadership at the local and state level, and the media has not gone after those leaders like they have Brown.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at March 8, 2006 8:35 AM
